Thank you for the memories. I was there at the last race. We will always remember Dago Red as the TOP aircraft that No one could ever beat. I was so looking forward to the next race when I heard that Dago Red would be retired that same race. Thanks to Skip and the crew. My dad loved coming to the Reno Air Races and this brought back good memories. Dad passed in 99 but loved Dago Red.
Real cool. When I was in the Air Force, at Norton in San Bernardino, I worked for about a year at the Santa Monica Flight Museum, on Miss America, Dago Red, a P39Q, and an A26 Invader around 1992-3.
I was out by the fenceline and had to watch the race from my car. The freezing rain and cold just seemed to blow in from nowhere. Still hard to believe they actually flew the race in that weather.
If this is the year I'm thinking of, skip literally flew the course by memory, and Braille!, and only cut one Pylon, which cost him the race, Snow flying in the valley of speed, and a serious coolant leak that fogged the whole canopy, Skip has and wins the Biggest Brass Balls Award, of anyone I've ever seen Flying in Reno that intense, an Amazing Pilot!
Larry, There was no coolant leak. The foggy canopy is not unusual in a Mustang cold wet conditions. It occurs when the spray bar water hits the radiator. Steam is sucked into the cockpit and fogs the canopy.
Nope. If it were the mags it would be a more consistent interference. A combination of a loose connection and moisture caused the video problems. This fog problem happens often in a Mustang when its cold and the spray bar comes on.
@@groomlake51 Yes the airplane has mags. We do not however use conventional aircraft sparkplugs. There are a few things that can be done to help with the fog issue but none were used on this flight. It also didn’t help that Skip dropped his rag. The moisture is formed on the canopy when the spray bar water comes on in a cold and wet environment. The water turns to steam and some is sucked up in the cockpit area. You just can’t seal all the little openings from the scoop area. This is a problem with all Mustangs. Maybe one of the other teams will pick up on your suggestion about the diving mask anti fog solution. If you looked at the other videos I have posted on Dago Red you will not see any other interference issues. On this race I discovered a video connector a little loose and the moisture didn’t help either. I don’t remember if it was on the camera the CCU or the GVD 900. The interference on this video is also irregular and does not follow engine RPM. It does follow with turbulence though. I don’t race anymore so I doubt if I’ll be involved in anymore video systems on a Mustang. In any event, I hope you enjoyed the video.
Tom Smothermon thanks so much for the info!! My last name is Holm so I’m a fan of Skips ! I work as a race engineer my self in racing on the ground. I always has a idea for these race planes that came from the A-12 or SR-71 . With all these spray bars and boil off cooling systems used that seem to always have problems why has no one ever tryed to use the fuel as a heat sink? Has any one ever tryed to use the fuel to cool the motor before being consumed ? If you had a heat exchanger and ran the engine oil past the fuel before it enters the fuel system I would think it would help in 2 ways. First off it would bring the oil temp down second it would bring the fuel temp up for better atomization . The fuel I race with is nitromethane and it’s greatly affected by temp. The thermal expansion of nitro is tremendous , so we try to chill the fuel as much as possible in the injected cars because the colder it is the more oxygen it holds with in its self. These race planes you gasoline though correct? Or do some guys use methanol ? If they do burn gas and not alky then heating the gas would help atomize the fuel to get a better more complete burn.
Tom Smothermon as far as your spark plugs go..... in my racing we run mags and BIG ONES AT THAT! We run dual 44 amp mags . To run the system efficiently we run a hollow carbon core spark plug wire . The spark basically bounces off the walls down the hollow carbon wire down towards the spark plug. Because it doesn’t have to travel through a wire there is very little resistance and thus very little delay in spark timing. The RF feed back is usually produced in the wire as a form of induction .
Thank you for the memories. I was there at the last race. We will always remember Dago Red as the TOP aircraft that No one could ever beat. I was so looking forward to the next race when I heard that Dago Red would be retired that same race. Thanks to Skip and the crew. My dad loved coming to the Reno Air Races
and this brought back good memories. Dad passed in 99 but loved Dago Red.
Real cool.
When I was in the Air Force, at Norton in San Bernardino, I worked for about a year at the Santa Monica Flight Museum, on Miss America, Dago Red, a P39Q, and an A26 Invader around 1992-3.
I was out by the fenceline and had to watch the race from my car. The freezing rain and cold just seemed to blow in from nowhere. Still hard to believe they actually flew the race in that weather.
Many thanks, Tom! So glad you were able to capture these runs, GO SKIP!!!! And the radio chatter is AWESOME!
Stunning !!
If this is the year I'm thinking of, skip literally flew the course by memory, and Braille!, and only cut one Pylon, which cost him the race, Snow flying in the valley of speed, and a serious coolant leak that fogged the whole canopy, Skip has and wins the Biggest Brass Balls Award, of anyone I've ever seen Flying in Reno that intense, an Amazing Pilot!
Larry, There was no coolant leak. The foggy canopy is not unusual in a Mustang cold wet conditions. It occurs when the spray bar water hits the radiator. Steam is sucked into the cockpit and fogs the canopy.
RF feed back from the magnetos is killing the camera 🤣
Nope. If it were the mags it would be a more consistent interference. A combination of a loose connection and moisture caused the video problems. This fog problem happens often in a Mustang when its cold and the spray bar comes on.
Tom Smothermon so your saying there’s no mags on this plane?? Also a great trick is to used diving mask anti fog on the canopy .
@@groomlake51 Yes the airplane has mags. We do not however use conventional aircraft sparkplugs. There are a few things that can be done to help with the fog issue but none were used on this flight. It also didn’t help that Skip dropped his rag.
The moisture is formed on the canopy when the spray bar water comes on in a cold and wet environment. The water turns to steam and some is sucked up in the cockpit area. You just can’t seal all the little openings from the scoop area. This is a problem with all Mustangs. Maybe one of the other teams will pick up on your suggestion about the diving mask anti fog solution.
If you looked at the other videos I have posted on Dago Red you will not see any other interference issues. On this race I discovered a video connector a little loose and the moisture didn’t help either. I don’t remember if it was on the camera the CCU or the GVD 900. The interference on this video is also irregular and does not follow engine RPM. It does follow with turbulence though.
I don’t race anymore so I doubt if I’ll be involved in anymore video systems on a Mustang. In any event, I hope you enjoyed the video.
Tom Smothermon thanks so much for the info!! My last name is Holm so I’m a fan of Skips ! I work as a race engineer my self in racing on the ground. I always has a idea for these race planes that came from the A-12 or SR-71 . With all these spray bars and boil off cooling systems used that seem to always have problems why has no one ever tryed to use the fuel as a heat sink? Has any one ever tryed to use the fuel to cool the motor before being consumed ? If you had a heat exchanger and ran the engine oil past the fuel before it enters the fuel system I would think it would help in 2 ways. First off it would bring the oil temp down second it would bring the fuel temp up for better atomization . The fuel I race with is nitromethane and it’s greatly affected by temp. The thermal expansion of nitro is tremendous , so we try to chill the fuel as much as possible in the injected cars because the colder it is the more oxygen it holds with in its self. These race planes you gasoline though correct? Or do some guys use methanol ? If they do burn gas and not alky then heating the gas would help atomize the fuel to get a better more complete burn.
Tom Smothermon as far as your spark plugs go..... in my racing we run mags and BIG ONES AT THAT! We run dual 44 amp mags . To run the system efficiently we run a hollow carbon core spark plug wire . The spark basically bounces off the walls down the hollow carbon wire down towards the spark plug. Because it doesn’t have to travel through a wire there is very little resistance and thus very little delay in spark timing. The RF feed back is usually produced in the wire as a form of induction .
Do you go to the air races ? I live about 45 mins away from them. This year I have that weekend off and would love to learn a bit more about tgem
A trick is to use diving mask anti fog on the canopy
I think that it much better idea than spitting on the entire inside of the canopy!!! Only divers will understand :-)